The Word Game

A/N: Not really a Finn/Piper shipper, but just like my favourite Storm Hawk in this story, I was bored.

Though it was a very well known fact in this part of the world, Finn found that it was worth mentioning.

Life wasn't fair.

There were a thousand things in his life that weren't fair—and there was nothing he was going to be able to do about it. For instance, his orphaned state. Or his rivalry with Ravess. Or his part in the war against the Cyclonians. Or even things closer to home, like the fact that no matter how much he begged, Stork was never going to let him fly the Condor. Or like how his feet were cold, and his socks were all the way across the room. Or like how they were completely out of Sandcakes for the third time this month and Piper had refused flatly to make another batch.

See, those things in his life were unfair. But the most wretched of them all—the most dangerous and deadly factor of his so desperately terrible existence—was that he was unconditionally and irrevocably bored.

See, for the past three days, his videogame collection hadn't been working, for the very simple reason that the TV was broken. They were all out of berries, so berry blitz wasn't a possibility. Reading for pleasure wasn't an option worth considering. Eating for the sake of it was already Junko's area of expertise. He wasn't going to dare clean his room, and he couldn't find his music CDs.

He considered playing random planks on random teammates just for the heck of it…but he was too bored to think of any. He thought about practicing his dismal Sky Fu, but that was far too much trouble to bother with. Unlike Stork, he couldn't just weave out strands of melancholy poetry to keep himself entertained. Or unlike Piper, he couldn't just draw stuff in a secret (not any more) sketch book. He wasn't a good cook—well, he didn't believe he was a good cook, like Junko did, and thus didn't bother making things to eat. He couldn't chase his tail like Radarr did. He didn't have one. And unlike Aerrow, he wasn't going to (and this was previously stated) read.

This left only one option for Finn, and it wasn't very exciting.

And that is why Finn was lying flat on his bed, facing the ceiling and counting the cracks on it. So far, he'd gotten to thirty four.

His eyes drooped with sleep. Maybe he should just doze off…? That would solve all his problems for at least a few hours. But he didn't want to.

So instead, he resumed counting. Thirty five, thirty six, thirty seven…He had a fleeting vision of the entre ceiling falling on his head and killing him. It certainly had enough cracks.

The door opened gently. "You're awake?" Piper asked, her voice soft. When Finn looked up, she seemed reassured, and entered.

"You made me lose track of counting," he mumbled groggily as he sat upright and rubbed his eyes. "I was counting the cracks on the ceiling."

She looked up, hands on her hips, and rolled her eyes. "Yeah…we should probably fix that ceiling," she declared.

"What do you want?" Finn asked.

"I want you to play with me." And with a flourish, she showed him a box of Scrabble which he'd previously failed to notice she was carrying. "I'd play with Aerrow or Stork, but Stork's busy with fixing something in the Condor, and Aerrow's asleep. It's a pretty slow day."

Scrabble. Finn wanted to laugh. A word game, seriously? Him and words? He didn't even like reading the back of cereal boxes! "Ask Junko," Finn said, barely concealing a smirk. Oh god, this was funny.

"He's helping Stork fix the Condor," Piper countered. "Come on, I'll even let you win. I'm so sick of working on crystals today!"

Hmm…Apparently, boredom was contagious on this airship. So Finn agreed, and they sat on the floor and set up the game.

The sniper looked at his letters with horror. They were terrible. He looked at them again and again, but they wouldn't go away. U, I, K, I, A, B, J.

Luckily, Piper had to start first. So she carefully arranged her letters to form, FRIEND, and took out six more letters. "Your turn," she said.

Well…um. He could say JAB, or…or…So Finn arranged the letters J, U, and K strategically around the N on the board to form the word JUNK. They worked out the points, and Finn took three more letters out of the little green bag.

This was a sleepy game. He didn't like board games in general, because just like the name suggested, they were boring. But Scrabble stole the crown by being the most tedious of them all. The silence while the opponent thought was an all-encompassing vacuum that sucked Finn into a universe of stupor.

He knew he should have been paying attention to his own letters, that were I, I, B, N, M, T, R. But he'd already decided to use the word NIT, and so his mind kept floating.

Piper's next word finally appeared on the board. RETRO.

"What's that?" Finn asked.

"It means old-fashioned," Piper exclaimed. "Your vocabulary sucks. It's a really common word."

"Whatever," Finn snapped. But instead of playing NIT, he went for ROT, using the second R in RETRO. "I'm bored," he complained again.

Piper wasn't listening. She carefully used the word TACT on the T of ROT. Finn placed the word CARE. Piper used six letters, and an R from Finn's CARE to make ROMANCE.

Finn gagged. "Girls."

Piper shot him a glare. "I just got twenty points." That shut up the sharpshooter.

The words kept flowing, and Finn found himself getting the slightest bit competitive about this game called Scrabble.

KITE

FOXTROT

MERCY

RANGER

JUMP

MICHEAL ("Hey! You can't use proper nouns," Piper cried.)

BRUTE

PRETTY

"You could have used those letters better," Piper said analytically. "You can make a better word than 'pretty'."

Finn couldn't, but this was Piper he was up against. Piper didn't seem to understand the challenges faced by lesser beings. So defensively, he said, "I don't care. I like the word pretty."

Piper looked up for a fraction, and then down again. She shrugged. "Okaaay…no need to get snippy." So she played her turn, and made the word SILLY.

"Is that you taking a shot at me?" Finn asked unkindly.

Piper smirked. "Someone is getting really insecure."

"No I'm not!"

"And that has nothing to do with the fact that I'm leading with twenty six points, either. Questioning your sanity, are you Finn?"

In response, Finn chose to make IDIOT. Piper rolled her eyes. "I'm not playing an insulting Scrabble game, okay?"

Finn snorted. "I'm bored," and with a sudden act of moodiness, tossed all his Scrabble tiles into the green bag, and said, "I don't wanna play anymore."

Piper sighed. He could be such a big baby when he was bored. No, he could be such a big baby, period. "There was another word I could have made, but you'd have made another sexist joke," she replied sharply.

Finn looked up and raised an eyebrow. "And what's that?"

"I had the right letters to make the word LOVE." And she waited for the joke.

It never came. Except maybe, that shriek of laughter from the sharpshooter as he rolled on the floor, clutching his sides. Piper stood above him, arms crossed disapprovingly as she waited for this exaggerated hysteria to subside.

When it finally did, a few seconds later, Finn was red in the face and streaming tears of laughter. Choking on his own breath, he responded, "Piper, that is the saddest way to hit on anyone."

A/N: As you may have guessed, I was winging it the whole time. From start to finish, I had no idea what I was doing. Anyway, what did you think? Thanks for reading! Leave a review!